


Finding Zen

by Zoe Rayne (MontanaHarper)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Episode Related, Episode: s03e14 Tao of Rodney, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-16
Updated: 2006-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:35:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontanaHarper/pseuds/Zoe%20Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Do you trust me?" Sheppard finally asked. "<strong>Really</strong> trust me?"</em>
</p><p>An AU scene from "Tao of Rodney."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Zen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalejandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/gifts).



Sheppard met him at the door, looking nervous and awkward, and Rodney had to consciously stop himself from letting Sheppard's thoughts filter through. He waited, standing just inside the room and trying not to bounce on the balls of his feet, but Sheppard didn't step back and Rodney's optimism began to falter.

"So, are we going to do this, or what?" he asked, trying for a relaxed smile that wouldn't telegraph just exactly how worried he was that Sheppard was going to pick the 'or what' option.

Sheppard licked his lips and sucked in a breath, looking for all the world like he was about to say or do something infinitely brave and more than a little dangerous. It was an expression Rodney was far too familiar with, one that usually resulted in him applying panicky first aid to Sheppard in the field and shouting at Carson a lot once they got back to Atlantis.

"Do you trust me?" Sheppard finally asked. " _Really_ trust me?"

Rodney shook his head, equal amounts of relief and exasperation flooding through him. "Of course. Do you honestly think I'd put my life in your hands every time we stepped through the stargate if I didn't?"

After a brief, searching look, Sheppard stepped closer, right into Rodney's space, and brushed gentle fingertips along Rodney's cheek. "Think you can follow orders? No questions or arguments?" he asked softly, and it was Rodney's turn to suck in a breath—a shuddering, shaky breath that didn't seem to help the clarity of his thoughts at all. Sheppard hadn't moved; he was obviously waiting for Rodney's answer.

The implications of Sheppard's words were pretty obvious, but still Rodney found it difficult—no, more like nearly impossible—to believe that he'd intended them to be so suggestive. Although...Rodney had suspected from the beginning that their interactions were verging on flirtatious, but when his casual touches hadn't gotten a response, he'd convinced himself that he was imagining the sexual undercurrent.

Apparently not.

And apparently he'd been silent too long, because Sheppard's hand dropped, and Rodney could feel the tension radiating off him as he prepared to step back, probably with the intent of playing the whole thing off as a joke or simply pretending it had never happened at all.

"Yes," Rodney said, putting all the sincerity he could muster into the single syllable, and for a fraction of a second Sheppard actually looked surprised, as though he hadn't expected it. "With the caveat that we both know I'm really not very good at either obeying orders or shutting up."

That earned him what might have been an affectionate half smile, and then Sheppard's expression was inscrutable again. "Lie down," he said. "Get comfortable and relax." He paused, inscrutable turning into intense and focused. "If the talking becomes a problem, I can always gag you."

The words went straight to Rodney's dick, an electric tingle that shot through him and left him acutely aware of every inch of his body, left him hypersensitive to the rough rub and press of his uniform against his skin and—imagining, surely—the faintest brush of oxygen molecules over his face and arms. He pushed away the emotional epiphany of a kink he hadn't previously been aware of; he'd deal with that later.

"This isn't going to work." _I'm supposed to be letting go of the physical, not embracing it,_ he wanted to say, and, _Somehow I doubt that kinky sex is the path to enlightenment._

Sheppard was still intense, still focused. "Lie down," he repeated, and this time there was an edge to the words, and something like steel in his voice and bearing that told Rodney he was entirely serious.

Rodney's breath caught, and a shiver ran through him. Silently, he stepped past Sheppard and sat down, then stretched out on the floor beside the bed, half hoping that the flickering shadows from the candlelight would hide the bulge of his erection and half hoping that they wouldn't. When Sheppard knelt next to him and slipped the headband on, Rodney's heart rate jumped in anticipation of the touch.

"Close your eyes."

He did, but then immediately opened them again. "What does the monitor read now? I need a baseline, some way to know whether or not I'm making progress here."

Sheppard shook his head and stroked a hand down Rodney's cheek. "Let me worry about progress. You just worry about following orders."

Rodney let his eyes close again, taking a shuddering breath and trying to relax, to envision a calm, clear blue sky. It wasn't easy, with Sheppard close enough for him to hear the tiniest rustle of fabric, close enough for him to reach out and touch.

"There's two ways we can do this," Sheppard said. "I can tie you up so you can't move, blindfold you so you can't see, and gag you so you can't talk—" Rodney bit back a moan, squashing down the part of him that was insisting this was Not a Good Idea. "—or you can keep yourself still, keep your eyes and mouth shut on your own."

There was silence for a moment, while Rodney tried to decide whether he was supposed to answer or to keep quiet, and whether Sheppard would rather have him bound or exercising self-restraint.

As if reading his mind, Sheppard continued, "It'd be kind of hard to explain rope marks to Beckett."

Which was, yes, an exceedingly good point, and one he wasn't going to think too much about. An image flashed sharp and vivid into his mind: himself, naked and stretched across Sheppard's bed, wrists bound together above his head, legs spread wide, dick achingly hard. He wasn't sure if it was Sheppard's thought or his own, or whether that even mattered.

"I can— I'll hold still. On my own, that is," Rodney said, and his voice sounded strangely soft and breathy and oddly free of any indication of the tendrils of panic that were twisting through him, tightening across his chest like strangler vines and making it hard for him to breathe. It was almost like anaphylaxis, only exponentially more terrifying because the cause wasn't something simple like lemons that he could avoid, but was a newly discovered part of himself.

Sheppard's fingers stroked across his cheek again, then down along his neck to the collar of his tee-shirt, the sudden touch surprising a tiny jerk out of him. "Good."

Rodney squared his shoulders and breathed, trying to let himself relax. Trying to let himself give in. Touches trailed lightly across a pebbled nipple, skated over the too-soft flesh of his waistline, and stroked down one sensitive thigh. His fingers twitched, but he stifled the dual urges: to cover himself and his imperfections, his vulnerabilities, and to reach out and touch in return.

Sheppard's hand moved away and there was a quiet sound, a susurration of cloth against cloth as Sheppard shifted beside him. When the next touch came, it was not at all what he expected; it was the length of Sheppard's body alongside his, chest warm against his bicep and the hard, fabric-covered curve of an erection brushing the back of his hand.

Warm breath ghosted past his ear as Sheppard leaned forward, palm splayed flat on his stomach, and whispered, "You're doing great." A brush of skin that might have been a grazing kiss along his jaw, and Rodney was blindsided by feelings of intimacy, of connection. Another epiphany: both of them still clothed and barely touching, yet the experience was already more intense than the last dozen times he'd actually had sex.

"Stop thinking," Sheppard ordered, and the words tumbled out before Rodney could halt them: "How? How am I supposed to _do_ that? It's like telling me to stop breathing—"

Lips pressed to his, a chaste kiss that stopped the flow of both words and thoughts like a brick wall. He could smell Sheppard, warm and spicy and oddly familiar. "Release your burden." There was a hint of self-mockery in Sheppard's tone; obviously he was as aware as Rodney of how ridiculous it sounded.

"Yes, right. Clear blue sky." His voice went embarrassingly high and breathy as Sheppard's fingers slipped under the hem of his tee-shirt. He closed his mouth, trying to empty his mind of everything, shuddering as Sheppard lightly pinched first one nipple and then the other.

Sheppard's hands on him were never still—one caressing his cheek, his neck, his shoulder, the other trailing from chest to stomach to thigh, stroking his dick until he was aching and so sensitive that the layers of fabric between them felt nonexistent and Sheppard's touch felt like it was branding his fingerprints into Rodney's skin. Rodney fought the urge to arch up, to press himself into Sheppard's grip until he was indelibly marked, and he was rewarded with the warm murmur of Sheppard's voice in his ear.

"Let go, Rodney. I've got you. Trust me and let go."

Rodney had never in his life wanted anything so desperately. He let himself sink further down, let the totality of his universe shrink until there was only Sheppard—the glide of his hands and the spice of his skin and the caress of his voice. The ache that had been building in him was transformed by the pressure of Sheppard's palm, becoming a flash of white heat and electricity that sparked through his whole body as he came.

As he drifted, the echoes of Sheppard's _come on_ and _yes_ and _let go_ still in his ears, Rodney heard Sheppard move, felt him shift away and felt the loss of his touch like the loss of a part of himself. Taking a breath, he tried to center himself, reaching for normalcy because it was better—easier—than staying in this altered space that they'd created between them. He didn't want to want this, not when he was just going to have to give it up again, thanks to the goddamned Ancients and their fucking death machine.

He cleared his throat. "What's it down to?"


End file.
